The Hindu Business Line : Relying on technology to feed people

There is a lot of hue and cry about climate change and global warming, though nobody is very clear what it really means. Some experts say that the average surface temperature of the globe will start rising on account of greater industrialisation; glaciers will recede, sea levels will rise and temperatures might reach unbearable levels. They also say that the rise in the temperatures will not be linear. Temperatures might show extreme fluctuations between extremely cold and extremely hot. Similarly, rainfall might also become erratic, particularly in countries dependent on monsoons.

The precipitation expected over the entire rainy season might come down in single month causing large-scale inundations, loss of property and of life as witnessed these last few years in Mumbai. Some ecologists foresee earthquakes and volcanic eruptions that can cause tsunami-like tidal waves and massive inundations.

Since, this year’s Nobel Prize went to the leaders of the ecological movement, every “jholawala” with some sort of an NGO outfit to back him has added his voice to the outcry on how grievously erroneous the whole approach of mankind has been to economic development since the advent of industrialisation, and how the human race will need a mid-course correction, if not an about-turn, that will be based on an arrest/reversal of demographic expansion and slowing down of economic growth.

A couple of decades earlier, there were similar tirades against “capitalist” growth by the Communists and fellow-travellers, who argued that growth in a capitalist economy was bound to suffer from intermittent cyclical depressions and economic crises.

Put the words ‘global warming’ in the place of cyclical depressions, and you get the current picture. All citizens recognise the importance of the essential planks of environmentalism:

avoid waste of non-renewable resources, water and power,

avoid causing pollution and environmental damage,

avoid cutting down trees, and grow more trees, to the extent possible,

do not deprive project-affected communities of their natural environment, livelihood and lifestyle.

But the environmentalists of today do not limit themselves to that. They target the whole developmental process as mankind has known it. Your environmental saviour resembles a watermelon, green outside but red inside.

The Communists who, in their heyday, ridiculed Tolstoy and Mahatma Gandhi as obscurantist charlatans, have taken to professing environmentalism after the fall of the Soviet Union.

When Stalin lived and ruled, these very people championed the cause of establishing a Communist global hegemony as a legitimate revolutionary aspiration.

Now, they are opposed even to the establishment of a set of rules of international trade under the World Trade Organisation.

There used to be a time when they defended Stalin’s holding a brief for fraudulent biologist Lysenko; now they are opposed even to genetic engineering tried and tested over half the globe.

Once upon a time, they applauded the launch of the Sputnik; now they are opposed to all attempts at exploration of neighbouring planets as alternative locations for the settlement of humanity.

Environmentalism is good business as well. The leaders of the movement receive almost instantaneous recognition as ‘visionaries’ concerned about the long-term prospects of humanity rather than the short-term objectives of growth and consumerism.

Doomsdays did not happen

Over the long history since industrialisation began, not one of the catastrophes the environmentalists forecast for the world and humanity have actually come to pass. Coal-miners did not destroy the earth, nor did the railways destroy the countryside.

Despite the population multiplying, men eat better and live longer today. Pesticides have not brought about the large-scale disasters that the environmentalists foresaw and the introduction of biotechnology in cotton did result in affluence for some cotton growers.

The apprehensions of the environmentalists have often been found to be based on exaggeration and mis-interpretation of facts. The temperature of the earth’s surface, the melting of glaciers, precipitation and the availability of water, it has been established, follow a statistical pattern that is far from off-beat.

Even if the fears of the environmentalists of an impending doomsday look like materialising, human ingenuity is capable of coping with it. Already, plans are afoot to create an artificial sundial in space to soften the effect of solar radiation.

Neighbouring planets are being explored with a view to finding a congenial environment for the settlement of generations to come.

In fact, human ingenuity is such that, as Ayn Rand put it, even if the Sun itself were to collapse, human beings would be able to replace it with a Sun of their own creation.

Malthus predicted widespread epidemics and famines in a situation where the supply of land was constant and the population increased in geometric proportion. He was proved false by technological innovations that permitted citizens of today to eat more and better than his forefathers did.

Farm technology

The new agricultural technology presupposed industrial and transport revolutions with their inevitable consequences on the environment. Humanity has a better chance of surviving if there is a major shift to genetic engineering. There is nothing like ‘evil technology’. Every technology has its beneficial aspects and its less beneficial ones. When the evil effects of technologies start manifesting, man has usually found a way to overcome them by innovating further towards a more advanced technology.

Global warming and climate change portend some serious consequences for Indian agriculture. Food-grains production might be drastically cut down. The White Revolution might be check-mated by the adverse effect of the higher temperatures on hybrid cows.

The food processing industry may be hit hard by the greenhouse gas effect of the processing technology. There are many large demands on the limited cultivable land available for production of substitutes for hydrocarbon products. Humanity will take the problem in its stride and find ways of overcoming them.

Humanity lives by its more innovative and enterprising members. Human ingenuity is limitless. There is no doubt that each innovation may create some new problems. But those problems, one can be sure, will be overcome by man’s ingenuity.

(The author is Founder, Shetkari Sanghatana and Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha. E-mail: sharad.mah@nic.in)

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